Dukies down Hoosier women in NCAAs

Goals by sophomores KayAnne Gummersall and Elisabeth Redmond have the Blue Devils (10-5-7) moving on to next week’s matchup with No. 11 Notre Dame in the national quarterfinals rather than the Hoosiers (13-7-3). The loss was the first of the season at home for Indiana, which got farther this year in the NCAA tourney than any other team in program history.

The game was played in horrible weather (cold rains, cold air, cold field), limiting the fans in attendance, but both teams had to deal with it and neither complained about the worst conditions they’d seen all year.

Gummersall’s goal came with 4:10 remaining in the first half, a HUGE no-no according to IU coach Mick Lyon, who feels the first and last five minutes in a period are red flag times for absolutely no breakdowns. But, according to him and the team, the deficit was not too uncomfortable during the halftime break.

“We asked the girls, ‘Do you feel like you’re in on this game, do you feel like you’re good enough to win this game?’ and there was total consensus from everybody that they were in it,” Lyon said.

Said Krisitin Arnold, IU’s leading scorer: “I don’t think that we really got into much of a panic mode at halftime, going down 1-0. There was a lot of confidence…we were still pretty composed.”

Panic didn’t really set in until the second Duke goal, and the last 10 minutes was a desperate last push. The Hoosiers had some close misses, but the game totals show just two shots on goal for them compared to nine for the Devils. Shot totals favored Duke, 14-8.

IU goalie Lauren Hollandsworth made seven saves, most of them shot right at her. One diving effort stopped an earlier try by Redmond, who later scored on a wide open feed from teammate CJ Ludemann after an attempted pass failed and ended up working in Duke’s favor.

Allison Lipsher, in the net for the Blue Devils, said closing out the game after scoring first was the real task at hand. She completed her seventh shutout of the season. “Both 1 and 2-nothing are very, very scary leads to have. They’re very dangerous, so it’s just a matter of focus I think.”

Duke coach Robbie Church said taking away Indiana’s “services,” or balls that are part of an offensive scheme, was a focal point of the defense. “(Indiana’s) a taller group, their girls up front, and we wanted to try to take away their serves. It’s hard to get forwards to be able to defend, but our group has done a great job.”

Hoosier senior Lindsay McCarthy was issued a yellow card at 32:51 after a slide tackle from behind on Kendall Bradley. The call was instant, and Lyon did not hesitate to take McCarthy off the field immediately for a breather following the dirty play.

Credit a youthful Hoosiers team with making history, and even more exciting, only five seniors will graduate. Seven of Indiana’s top eight scorers should be back for the 2008 campaign, and Lyon’s sights are now set beyond the Big Ten title and toward the College Cup’s Final Four.

One of those seniors is Katy Stewart, a Bloomington South product, who in her IU career tallied three goals and nine points mostly as a defender. She started all 23 games in her final go-around, the last seven as a midfielder.

“Theyâ€™ll do well in the next three or four years,” Stewart said of her younger mates. “Nothing to worry about there, and itâ€™s just great to be on the team thatâ€™s kind of starting the run.”